


Anyone Can Fall

by johnsjumpers



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Dirty Thoughts, F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 07:29:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnsjumpers/pseuds/johnsjumpers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for a prompt on tumblr: "I can’t believe no one wrote fic where Raleigh accidentally starts having dirty thoughts while he and Mako are piloting."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anyone Can Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this and couldn't let it go by unfilled. So, here it is. Mako begins to see some of Raleigh's more private thoughts when they're piloting.

   The idea of giving all your memories, thoughts and feelings to another person may have been a daunting one, but the type of people who earn a spot driving mile high robots aren’t the type to be easily daunted. By the time jaeger pilots were in the drift, they had already developed enough trust with each other to not fear judgment from their counterparts. Painful childhoods and adolescent mistakes all faded away in the drift, becoming just a part of the ocean of information in which the pilots swam. Once the neural handshake stuck, there was no time to waste.

   Mako tried not to ever dwell on any one thought, either hers or Raleigh’s. She couldn’t risk getting caught up and chasing the rabbit again. Raleigh had been a pilot for far longer than she had, and she didn’t want to seem like a fool by making another rookie mistake and dragging him down into her memories. She let memories of apple pie, crowded streets and road trips float past, never focusing on faces or license plates long enough to get stuck.

   Drifting with someone meant syncing up your entire being with theirs. If the bond wasn’t complete, it wouldn’t be strong enough to work with. However, there were understood truths about drift etiquette. There were bruises you didn’t press, boxes you didn’t open. If a pilot found a thread, they left it un-pulled, because they couldn’t risk unraveling the whole drift by forcing their copilot into a memory. No one expected a fist timer to have enough control to do anything consciously while they were in the drift, though. They were spending all their energy trying not to get caught in the tidal wave of memories. The first time Mako and Raleigh drifted, he helped her learn. She was falling and rather than catch her, he let her fall while he quietly moved anything dangerous out of her way. The next time, he let her do the navigating. She understood what he was trying to say. _This only works if you trust me enough to let me teach you._

   Mako knew Raleigh trusted her completely, and invited her into his mind, but when they were drifting, she kept her distance out of respect. As long as the jaeger kept moving, she had never felt the need to probe deeper into his thoughts. When they were drifting, they could feel each other’s emotions, and as Herc had said, it made them think they didn’t need to say things out loud. There was friendly affection, the kind borne out of surviving challenges every day together, but they never really talked about the serious things with each other. She knew it might be damaging to their relationship, but Mako had never been good with words, and she was worried that talking with her copilot about anything beyond the dry mashed potatoes or squeaky uniform boots might reveal emotions she was trying to keep to herself.

   She knew he had felt it in the drift, but tensions and emotions ran high in the cockpit, and adrenaline fueled certain thoughts that pilots generally ignored. It was understood that the relationship between pilots was intimate, and when pilots weren’t related, there was usually another sort of bond that filled the place of the genetic one other pairs of pilots had. The physical compatibility often spilled over, and there were hushed stories of pilots whose ability to drift was irreparably damaged when their relationship outside the cockpit was fractured. Mako had put too much work into earning her spot as a pilot, so she steeled her emotions, because if Raleigh discovered her one-sided affections, she was scared of what it might do to their working relationship. She wouldn’t let a crush derail the efforts she had made.

***

The first time she saw something truly unexpected in Raleigh’s mind was in a simulator session. They had spent six hours drifting in the tight fitting training suits, and they were sweaty and emotionally exhausted. They were getting ready to disengage, when she felt it. At first, it was like heat, resting at the back of her mind. She knew it was from Raleigh, because it had the golden tinge that all his thoughts had. She leaned back into the warmth, but her eyes flew open when the next picture that filled her mind was of herself, standing in front of a running hot shower, slowly peeling the suit off her skin. She blinked and swallowed hard, and let her eyes dart over to Raleigh. He wasn’t even looking at her. They took the final few steps and she let out her breath as the simulator shut down. She pulled off her helmet and stood, still shocked, staring at her copilot. He lifted his helmet off as well, and looked over at her.

   “You okay, Mako? You look a little flushed.” The statement was innocent enough, but she couldn’t tell if the accompanying smile was a knowing smile, or just a smile of relief that the god awful training session had finally ended.

   “I am fine,” she said shortly. Before her face betrayed any of her thoughts, she turned to walk out of the room.

   “Gone so soon?” Raleigh teased as she walked away. “Fine. I don’t know about you but I’m definitely looking forward to a nice, hot shower.”

   There was no way to hide the noise she made when she heard that.

***

   The next time Mako caught one of Raleigh’s stray thoughts was when they were on an evening patrol a few days later. They were walking up and down a 50-mile stretch of coastline over and over, daring the predicted kaiju in the area to come closer. They hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before, and they could see each other’s thoughts becoming more and more about dinner, and less and less about aliens. Mako indulged herself in Raleigh’s thoughts of homemade apple pie. It was a fixation of his, something from his childhood that she never brought up. She smiled inwardly at the innocence of it. The next thing to cross his mind made her rethink every shred of innocence she had ever associated with him. It was a drawn out thought. Again, it was of her, this time with a spoonful of ice cream. _She watched herself put the spoon in her mouth, and then pull it out slowly, only to push it back in. As the ice cream melted, a drop escaped her lips, sliding down her chin. She put her finger to her lips, wiped up the errant drop, and pushed her finger into her mouth, running her tongue all over it before releasing it with a pop._ The whole thing lasted ten seconds, more than long enough for him to know she would have seen it. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. The base wasn’t exactly a nightclub, and maybe, even for someone who looked like Raleigh did, it had been a while.

   Mako decided to continue with the ‘ignore and deny’ strategy and pretend she had missed the whole thing. Despite her best efforts, though, she couldn’t give an explanation for why she couldn’t stop blushing when the mess hall decided to serve ice cream for dessert the next night.

***

   The next week was a study in patience for Mako. It seemed like every time she and Raleigh drifted, he’d have new thoughts. Through his mind, she watched herself put on lingerie under her usual fatigues, eat a lollipop with alarming enthusiasm, and cry out when the ratchet in the elbow joint she had been fixing failed and the metal plate she had been sitting on began violently vibrating. They were flattering, of course, and the idea of being though of like that was doing wonders for her confidence.  After seven days of the torture, she decided to beat Raleigh at his own game. She was running out of excuses for leaving training flustered every day. Even if the thoughts were accidents, at least her idea would let him know that she was seeing everything he had been thinking.

***

   The drift started off normally enough. Handshake initiated, hemispheres calibrated, all according to plan. Gipsy Danger was running back-up for some reconnaissance mission a couple hundred miles away. They hadn’t gotten a solid reason for why they were needed, but at least they had a 15 minute helicopter ride to look forward to. Mako and Raleigh had woken up earlier than usual, so they were both tired despite the fact that they were on their way to a job. The adrenaline that accompanied a surprise 2AM mission just wasn’t there. As they were lifted over the ocean, both of their thoughts started to wander. Raleigh was thinking about going back to sleep. Mako wasn’t. She pushed her thoughts into Raleigh’s consciousness. As soon as she was sure she had his attention, she let loose. Her mind built up a scene in front of them both:   _Raleigh’s oxygen connection had been shaken loose and he couldn’t reach the cable to reconnect it. Mako leaned down slowly and pulled her fingers over the thick tubing. She leaned over to hook him back up, but a change in the wind threw her forward. When she looked up at him, pupils blown, her hand was resting not-so-subtly on the front of his combat suit. Instead of looking down apologetically and moving away, she ran her fingers over the bulge experimentally. She loosened the protective plate over the armor and let her fingers explore._  

   As the fantasy raged on in both of their minds, Raleigh’s breath quickened.  Mako wasn’t letting him out of this one. She looked over at him, and kept going.

_Her fingers picked up the pace, growing frustrated with the barrier between them and what they wanted. She leaned in, breathing hotly over the trail her hands were leaving. The suit was heat and water resistant, but she rested her lips against the bulge and breathed in and out slowly. Finally, it grew to be too much. She stood slowly and reached around his wide shoulders to pulled the release zipper down. The lower half of the suit and armor peeled away. She reached forward, ready to take what she wanted, and all of a sudden—_ a voice came over the comms.

   “Gipsy Danger, ETA at destination is five minutes. Prepare for drop.” Mako was shaken from her thoughts. She didn’t look down or away, though. There was no mistaking this for an accident. Raleigh’s eyes were wide open. The look he gave her was equal parts admiration and hunger.

   “Where on earth did that come from?” he asked breathlessly, turning towards her.

   “I’m sure you know,” Mako replied matter- of-factly. He wasn’t getting let off the hook that easily. She wouldn’t give this up without a fight.

   “I wish I knew,” Raleigh replied quietly.

   “Oh, so you can just stand there and pretend you haven’t been doing the same to me for a week?” Raleigh blanched. He looked straight at her.

   “You saw those?” he asked.

   “All of them,” Mako replied. “What, like you’re going to pretend it was an accident?

   “The thoughts weren’t an accident. You seeing them was, though.”

   “Why wouldn’t you want me to see those?”

   “You’ve heard the stories,” he said. “I thought if you knew, and didn’t feel the same it would ruin _this_.” He gestured to the space between them. “You’re an amazing pilot. I didn’t want to jeopardize either of our jobs or our friendship by ruining everything with a stupid crush.”

   “It’s not stupid,” Mako practically whispered. Raleigh opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, the voice over the comms came back.

   “Drop in 3…..2….1!” The conversation was involuntarily put on hold when the cables holding Gipsy up were retracted. They hit the water, and the next few hours were a whirlwind of sea water and kaiju blood.

***

   By the time they were back at base, they were both too exhausted to say anything right then. They exchanged a knowing look, and Mako headed off to wash the seaweed out of her hair. When she emerged from the shower rooms fifteen minutes later, Raleigh was sitting on the bench outside the entrance waiting.

   “What did you say after I explained everything?” Raleigh asked.

   “I said it wasn’t stupid.” Mako looked him straight in the eye.

   “So you’re saying…”

   “I’m saying that there were better ways of telling me all this than picturing me eating ice cream like _that_ ”

   “Oh god, you’ll never let me hear the end of that, will you?” He put his head in his hands, dramatizing his embarrassment.

   “I might,” she said slowly. He looked up.

   “What?”

   “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll stop teasing you about it if…”

   “If what?”

   “…if you let me try it sometime.” She threw a wink over her shoulder as she turned to walk out, leaving a dumbfounded Raleigh standing open-mouthed in the middle of the hallway. 

-END-


End file.
